Funny 1040, Vancouver’s newest radio station, seems unlikely to win over many fans.
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Friday marked the on-air debut of Funny 1040, Bell Media’s comedy-focused replacement for TSN 1040, the popular local sports radio station that was abruptly pulled off the air despite nearly 20 years of good ratings.
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Along with the broadcast launch, Bell fired up a new Twitter account for the station — they had deleted the TSN 1040 account on Tuesday morning, around the time they took over the station’s airwaves remotely — and its first tweet was met with universal condemnation and mockery.
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Fans of the former station, which was founded as TEAM 1040 in 2001 before being re-branded to TSN 1040 in 2014, were quick to call out Bell for their destruction of the popular local station and the manner in which they dismissed the station’s staff.
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The inaugural tweet was both responded to and quote-tweeted with nearly 1,000 comments in the six hours after it’s release, nearly derisive in tone. Many also mocked Bell’s let’s talk social media initiative, which took place just 1.5 weeks before 1040’s sudden demise.
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On top of the flat-out anger towards Bell for shutting down a station that had created a strong sense of community over the years, other commenters took time to share cynicism about the new station’s likely sources of comedians, expressing little expectation that the station will air anything other than big-name comedians, providing little or no space for young up-and-comers.
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